


Departure

by blackeyedblonde



Series: Clouds of Dust [1]
Category: Interstellar (2014)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Pre-film release
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1715222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t talk, just doze away under the brightening wash of weak half-light, and in a few more hours they’ll be here again, only with bitter tears and faltering white-knuckled grips and a chase that ends in a rising cloud of dust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Departure

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off nothing more than a vague three-minute trailer and is being published on this day nearly six months before the actual movie release, so maybe cut me some slack where I falter lol. Just some impending daddy feels for ya nerves. I have no shame left.

The night before he leaves an unfamiliar heat drapes out over the earth like a wet blanket, making his breath stick fast in his craw and his undershirt cling damp to the small of his back. The boy went up to bed an hour or two ago and the old man is dozing in the living room recliner—or at least putting up a damn good ruse of it—, and first light isn’t far off now but he climbs the old staircase to the loft anyways, pads barefoot into Murph’s room and kneels down on creaking joints by the side of her bed.

His knees put up a quiet fight but he sets there without moving, watching the gentle rise and fall of her back by nothing more than the waning moonlight filtering in through the dusty window. She’s curled up on her side, tangled up in one of his old oversized t-shirts with the sheet kicked clear down to her knees. He immediately wants to pull the covers up over her shoulders and tuck her in, swaddle her tight like a baby he’s trying to soothe and quiet—just wrap her up in something palpable like maybe it’ll keep her safe, like maybe it’ll keep her held close and together when he’s gone.

But two fingers touched lightly to her back tell him she’s sweating, so he leaves the sheet where it is, leaves her bare and exposed to the panting breath of humid night.

And that’s the way it’ll go, he figures. That’s the way it’s gonna be.

The minutes edge by and give way to an hour, and he must doze off at some point because when he next opens his eyes Murph has rolled over to watch him, irises reflecting two glassy pinches of light.

“Daddy?” she says.

“S’alright, baby,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and silently wishing away the crick in his neck. “You can go back to sleep.”

They both breathe in and out for a spell, too-soft and meditated to be natural, until a familiar hand is reaching out to rest in the junction between his neck and shoulder, damp fingers curling under the collar of his t-shirt. Murph’s voice comes a few seconds later, quiet as a church mouse in the breaking drum of new morning.

“Can you hold me?” she asks, so drenched in whisper that he thinks he may have imagined it, but when he finally looks up there’s a mixture of abstract shame and irrepressible need spilled out across her face, pulling tight at the edges of her eyes.

“You’re too old for that, Murph,” he says, ticking back the number of years until he recalls her last asking this question, settling somewhere around age six, wedged down deep in a memory where she came home from school crying so hard about something that she could hardly get the words out. He’d merely sat on the bottom stair and cradled her close to his chest, gently rocking back and forth with his nose pressed into the soft hair above her ear until her breathing had slowed and evened out and the front of his shirt was soaked with spit and tears.

Murph doesn’t say anything to fight him. Turns out she never really needed to because he’s already given in anyways, pulling himself up off the floor to slide in next to her on the twin-sized bed. The sun will be up in an hour and they’re both still clammy with night sweat, but he holds her close anyhow, gets an arm around her shoulders and tucks her head up under his chin until she can feel the faint thrum of his heartbeat against her back.

They don’t talk, just doze away under the brightening wash of weak half-light, and in a few more hours they’ll be here again, only with bitter tears and faltering white-knuckled grips and a chase that ends in a rising cloud of dust.

But that’s the way it’ll go, Coop tells himself. That’s the way it has to be.


End file.
